Those differences are enough to cause educators to push back strongly, while those supporting the bill stand by their conviction that this is a pro-educator bill and will have a positive impact on student learning.

To Marsh’s credit, many groups were consulted along the way, with the first draft having been floated last November. I’ve counted five drafts before the final bill was filed on March 1.

Marsh is the only person I haven’t spoken with directly about the PREP Act, but since he sponsored the bill, it seemed appropriate to pull together some of his statements to start the discussion.

In a statement released after the committee gave passage to the bill, Marsh said, “This piece of legislation is a major win for students, parents and effective teachers and will help as we strive to ensure that our children receive a world class education that will give them an advantage in the increasingly competitive job market.”

“Major education reforms are never easy. Those who maintain the status quo will stop at nothing to keep it, but in the end, a majority of members of the Committee agreed that this is the right thing to do. I look forward to seeing this piece of legislation on the floor.”

Jacobs is known across the country as an expert on state and district policy regarding teacher evaluation. Jacobs, Dr. Joe Morton and I sat down the morning of the public hearing to discuss the world of teacher evaluation and the PREP Act.

Jacobs said that it’s fair to say that we don’t know “one right best way” to evaluate teachers that will impact positively student achievement, teacher recruitment and retention. States are still very different in their approaches to teacher evaluation.

Across the country, 43 states require student achievement data to be part of a teacher’s evaluation. In 2010, that number was near zero. “The landscape has transformed. This has become standard practice.”

She acknowledged that everyone doesn’t “love” it, but very few states don’t believe that student achievement has any place in a teacher’s evaluation.

She said the federal law for education, ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act), doesn’t do away with the requirement around teacher evaluation entirely and that its predecessor, No Child Left Behind (NCLB) gave states the right to create their own system, which they did.

“Very few states don’t have [teacher evaluation] policy that is entirely their own,” Jacobs said. Most states adopted legislation or implemented regulations regarding teacher evaluation systems.

Alabama is unique in that while the ALSDE told the federal government it was moving forward with a teacher evaluation system as promised in its waiver, we didn’t pass any laws or create any regulations to guide it. In other words, the only place that Alabama’s teacher evaluation system exists is in the waiver from NCLB. Those waivers are no longer in effect after August 1, 2016.

In effect, then, the ALSDE’s Educator Effectiveness model, outlined in Alabama’s waiver, will no longer be required after August 1, 2016.

The landscape of teacher evaluation has changed dramatically, and that was due in large part to recognizing that we weren’t doing a good job with teacher evaluation, Jacobs said, adding that it wasn’t that states weren’t necessarily doing a good job of “weeding out the bad apples”, but that teacher evaluations weren’t giving teachers any information to help them grow and improve their teaching.

She understands that teachers are emotional and worried that this is a “gotcha” type mechanism, but that in the 40-plus states that have these types of evaluation systems in place, “there is no evidence that they’ve been put in place to be ‘gotcha’ systems”.

“You can’t build trust in an abstract concept. You build trust when you actually do it.”

Regarding the use of student growth, Jacobs stressed that bringing in some objective evidence is important in evaluating teachers.

That evidence doesn’t have to be based on the same test across all districts because all districts aren’t necessarily teaching the same thing, she added.

In fact, Jacobs said, under the PREP Act, in non-state-assessed areas that evidence doesn’t have to be based on tests at all, but could instead be based on student learning objectives or other pre- and post-tests that, for example, require a student in auto mechanic class to do something very hands-on like take apart an engine and put it back together again.

She acknowledged that no state has figured out exactly how to measure growth in subjects that are not state-assessed.

However, Jacobs said, “Any course that we’re teaching students, we want them to be learning something. It shouldn’t be inconceivable that no matter what the course, there’s a way to say ‘did kids learn what we wanted them to learn in this course’. We should be doing that for these kids, whether or not it serves a purpose for teacher evaluation.”

With regard to how much student growth should account for, Jacobs said that NCTQ believes that “you shouldn’t be able to get an effective rating if the objective evidence doesn’t show you are an effective teacher”. Alabama is on the low end of the actual proportion of an evaluation based on student growth. Thirty-five states require student growth data to count for one-third to one-half of a teacher’s evaluation. The PREP Act aligns with the ALSDE’s plan for one-fourth, or 25%, of the evaluation to be based on student growth.

Regarding using evaluations to award tenure, Jacobs said that teachers are on a tremendous learning curve in their first year, and extending the probationary period is important to allow them to better develop their skills.

Jacobs agreed that value-added modeling is imperfect, but said that no evaluation system is perfect. “We know that student growth models do very very well, despite their imperfections. They identify the tails very very well,” adding “it’s the tails that we care about. We want to make sure our superstars are getting identified as superstars and we want to make sure our strugglers are getting identified as strugglers.”

“Value-added does that very well.”

When questioned about additional costs that may emerge as districts determine how to pre- and post-test non-state-assessed subjects (if they’re not already doing so), Jacobs said, “We know definitively from many many studies that nothing matters more inside the school building to student success than the quality of the teacher. So the premise of all of this is to make our teachers the best prepared they can be to continue their professional growth so that they do the very best they can for students. Inside the school building, I don’t know what be more important to spend your dollars on than these things that are pushing that forward.”

Morton, who served as state superintendent from 2004 until 2011, said he believes most of the concern around the PREP Act comes from folks confusing it with its predecessor, the RAISE Act. The PREP Act is very different, Morton said, calling it “barely a kissing cousin” of the RAISE Act.

He said the PREP Act closely aligns with what the ALSDE is already doing around teacher evaluation, but does put into law some of the language and adds deadlines.

The PREP Act requires the ALSDE to develop a template that local school districts could use if they did not adopt their own.

Morton stressed that while both the ALSDE’s plan and the PREP Act call for 25% of the evaluation to be based on student growth, local school districts can develop the other 75%.

“I don’t know how much more liberal one can be than to say ‘design your own teacher evaluation’ around certain parameters.”

Regarding finding appropriate pre- and post-tests to measure growth, Morton said that good teachers are already measuring student growth within their classrooms.

For most teachers, Morton said not much would change.

The only teachers that could experience “dramatic change is those who are not being evaluated at all or are being so randomly and poorly evaluated that it amounts to no evaluation. Their boat may be rocked,” he said, “but that’s not the end of the world. Everybody needs a fair and comprehensive evaluation.”

“I haven’t heard any great rebellion from the school community over the state plan, so Marsh just takes the state plan and says it will now be the law of Alabama.”

He acknowledges that Marsh’s bill does go farther by calling for evaluations to be used in tenure decisions, but asks, “do we really want to give tenure to a person who has multiple unsatisfactory evaluations?” and then answering, “Probably not. That person might be better off doing something else.”

Morton sees changing tenure from three to five years as a “tremendous plus for the whole education community”, citing a number of examples why the additional years would be helpful for a new teacher and for a teacher who may be moved multiple times within a school district in the first few years.

The extension of time, and the inclusion of objective student growth measures, makes it more likely that teacher will have a fair determination, Morton said.

The PREP Act simply puts the pieces of evaluation that are already there into law, Morton said, defining when it happens and that it shall happen.

The bill gives not only gives great latitude to the ALSDE and local districts, but also “a whole lot of support in terms of recruitment, mentoring, and rewards for teachers,” Morton remarked.

“There’s $18 million in this bill, and all $18 million goes to teachers one way or the other,” he said. “If we’re gonna spend [money] on anything and make this whole thing called public education work, we better put it on teachers, and that’s where this money goes.”

“This is really a proactive teacher bill,” Morton added.

“All first-year teachers will get a mentor. That will help them be more successful. Future teachers will enter teaching knowing that they have supports that currently do not exist.”

Incentives will be provided for teachers to teach in hard-to-staff areas, he added, referring to the $2,500 bonus given to a teacher willing to teach in one of the hard-to-staff areas defined in the Act.

Regarding the Legislative Performance Recognition Programs, schools that show improvement or score in the top 10% across the state “will get rewarded with cash sent to their schools to spend,” Morton said, adding, “That’s pretty good.”

“It will be an opportunity, especially for poorer districts who always have difficulty with money to say ‘look, a little more shoulder to the wheel and we might get one of those 50- or 60-thousand dollar checks’.”

Interviewed immediately following the public hearing, the Business Council of Alabama’s Bill Canary said, “Whether you’re a proponent or an opponent, there were two things that were strongly in the narrative: that a teacher is the single most important thing in the success of a child, and secondly, the teachers need to be rewarded and there need to be different levels of performance. Those are the common discussions. We can always do better and this is just one step in a long journey to make a difference.”

Canary supported the idea of local school officials maintaining control over 75% of the evaluation, but agreed with 25% of a teacher or principal evaluation being based on student growth on the ACT Aspire among other assessments.

Canary pointed to the recruiting provisions in the bill aimed at rural areas in Alabama and said the types of incentives and rewards in the PREP Act are exactly what is needed, despite opponents feeling exactly the opposite.

“Our children are the most important component of this discussion, and the second most important component is the teacher. Those are the two things that matter most,” adding “you can’t build a great workforce without a great education system”.

Expert? Ms. Jacobs certainly finds her way into media efforts to cover (often woefully) education policy but does that make her an expert? Her roots in “Teach for Awhile” is also par for the course in the current climate. As an aside, my recollection is that the “Reading First” program in the Bush Education Department had a few “questions” about how money was doled out. I’m wondering if she was a political appointee. I’m not sure if working for Margaret Spellings or Rod Paige is anything to celebrate. And yes, that also goes for Arne Duncan or John King.

As to NCTQ, the casual reader should Google “What is NCTQ? (and why you should know)” from Diane Ravitch. Mercedes Schneider and others have also shredded much of the “scholarship” they relentlessly message out. Please also root around on the Fordham Institute since they founded NCTQ. As is almost always the case for education “reform” outfits, Bill Gates backs with his billions. Both group’s funding and reputations should be carefully considered.

Returning to Ms. Jacobs, she is actually “very, very” wrong – especially as to identifying (huh?) the tails (of a distribution curve.) I’m rather lost on what she means by “identifying” as pretty much every distribution will have at a tail and often two. Validity and reliability problems in this value-added voodoo aren’t going to go away by a NCTQ propagandist’s “very, very” easily tossed out assurances once a system has a personnel/pay decision that are contested or even just teachers varying year to year. Some of these value-added measures seem to have the same teacher as a stud one year and a dud the next. I’d like for Ms. Jacobs to actually cite some research backing up her “very, very” casually made claims. Are Del Marsh and his fellow travelers covering the litigation costs this mess will surely yield? And I still want to know which lobbyists have which clients lined up for the “longitudinal data” contract(s.)

There are plenty of other problems with the value-added mess but the bottom line in that there’s no way to control for all the many variables involved in learning/teaching.

Another reality to point out is that the reason for that big jump from 2010 as to using student achievement (what we can try to measure) in teacher evaluations is that Brand Obama’s “Race to the Top” program encouraged the same. The new ESEA rewrite, as flawed as it might be, is apparently going to allow several states to come to their senses. In some, however, the folks who’ve drank the Fordham … Kool-Aid are quite entrenched so they’ll presumably try to brazen things out. If by some miracle an instrument and process actually works, which is highly unlikely, perhaps then Del Marsh, the BCA … can put that state’s successes forward for consideration.

Lastly, Trisha writing “To Marsh’s credit, many groups were consulted along the way …” was quite notable to me. What many citizens, educators or otherwise, want to know is who all was with him at the start. That the earlier drafts got loose and that he then had to try to meet with various people/groups is hardly anything which he ought to be given credit for. That’s damage control. And to give him any benefit of the doubt seems especially generous when everybody knows Del Marsh and his minions pulled 2013’s “Accountability” Act switcheroo by literally double-crossing their own allies on the stalking horse “Flex Bill.” Leopards. Spots.

Here is an article from The Atlantic, published a few days ago. An excerpt: “A growing body of research and dozens of interviews with policymakers, experts, and others suggest that the new, more comprehensive evaluation systems have strengthened many school districts’ focus on instructional quality. They’ve forced principals to prioritize classrooms over bus schedules and lunch menus and sparked conversations in school buildings about effective teaching that often simply didn’t happen in the past.”

This suggests that the new conversations that were sparked about how to evaluate teachers haven’t been such a bad thing to force us all to talk about.

Alabama School Connection Regrets for the slow reply. Thanks for the kind words. Same goes for your work. I'm appreciative even when I might disagree. I'm blunt and have no skin in the game beyond that of a curmudgeonly citizen. There's much to say but let me first start with perhaps the least important things and build to more substantive points.

I had those early drafts I believe at the same time or perhaps even before you got them. You're generous giving Marsh praise for plotting with influencers/allies and one or more folks letting loose the language. He and his reached big early on but the PREP Act is still built on value-added voodoo. Your comment above cited twenty plus variables plus "a thousand other things that (may) influence how schools work." That's the problem! There's no way to control for all those variables! His/their Fabian changes still have them on the field. And they have plenty of troops and materiel left. They might even pull another switcheroo.

I'd read that Atlantic piece from Thomas Toch. This journalist/think tanker seems to view "superficial" evaluation as when educators evaluate educators. There are profiteers he's actually linking to and his definition of "performance" seems limited to outcomes which can be easily measured. I reject that shallow view and get quite nervous when profiteers/politicians/ideologues come in with solutions to percieved problems. That's what happens it seems when we start talking about education issues. Teachers get shut out and dabblers/opportunists seize the stage.

As an example of percieved problems, I'm willing to accept that some students aren't getting what they need. I'm a critical pedagogy guy so what I think they need isn't exactly about making them "productive." But yes, some students aren't being well served. (I also think many students are also hurt by a data-obsession.) I start with SES and such but I also know enough history (and Freire, Gramsci …) to understand that poverty/inequitable funding is partly a result of decisions made by our Big Mules. The lid bills are maybe the best examples but there are many. Even now, powerful interests want a workforce that's educated just enough to be "productive" but not enough to question/challenge groups who've pretty much ran Alabama from the get go. For the record, I'm not sure that level of empowerment is possible in any statist-oriented arrangement. I tend to think bottom-up while it seems like you and most folks think top-down.

That said, I see an educational system that often does at least a decent job considering the cards they've been dealt. I've probably told you of the history of lamentations about how awful education was in past centuries. The Cold War period with its Sputnik Scare and then Reagan's flawed "Nation at Risk" fretting are good examples. What little is measurable and decent for comparison seems to suggest this nation's schools have muddled along pretty much the same as it always was. It's done at least a tolerable and perhaps even overall good job. There are several periods where schooling in Alabama and this nation changed greatly. I think there were several periods of "improvement" but I'm not sure how anyone can pinpoint and isolate any one approach/factor.

What's relatively new is all this neoliberal ideology represented by the rise of Thatcherism and Friedmanite ideology. Competition, metrics, privatization, accountability and essentially a form of market-fundamentalism has dominated the discourse in recent decades. But it's bunk – or at least mostly so.

Now we're here where I'm mostly wanting to focus. You've admitted that we're "early in the stages of research where teacher effectiveness measures are concerned." Setting aside that teachers have always been evaluated, I'll assume you're meaning what's quantitative/objective in orientation and mostly tied to performance of students. Yup, that's right. That this VAM mess has been pedal-to-the-medal in the face of this reality is remarkable given that reality. As that Atlantic piece offered, Brand Obama's "Race to the Top" plan embraced VAM in a big way. There's also the fact that outfits like NCTQ and a bevy of other "reform" groups have been pushing the envelope. It's cute to see self-professed "conservatives" like Marsh wanting to jump right in.

As to competing research, I don't see what you're seeing. I prefer educators to econometricians. I also look at funding and try to peel back veneers of scholarship. I look for peer-reviewed rather than "working papers." When a new study/claim gets traction in multiple media outlets, that's usually a clue something may be contrived and/or overstated. My reading of the VAM research is that even proponents see it as a mixed bag and admittedly accept it as in its early stages. Criticisms of not just conclusions but also methods/assumptions aren't rare.

There's a clear cost being paid by a shallow, high-stakes testing view. Folks are fed up.

Here is an article from The Atlantic, published a few days ago. An excerpt: "A growing body of research and dozens of interviews with policymakers, experts, and others suggest that the new, more comprehensive evaluation systems have strengthened many school districts’ focus on instructional quality. They’ve forced principals to prioritize classrooms over bus schedules and lunch menus and sparked conversations in school buildings about effective teaching that often simply didn’t happen in the past."

This suggests that the new conversations that were sparked about how to evaluate teachers haven't been such a bad thing to force us all to talk about.

Thank you, John, for your thoughtful comments. You bring up good points, and as we know, the research is still out on so much of this. Some research supports some parts of what Marsh is proposing, some research supports what the ALSDE is already doing.

There are researchers out there who truly believe that VAM has some validity. Some research says none of it is any good at all. Who are we to believe?

We are very early in the stages of research where teacher effectiveness measures are concerned, from what I learned in my statistics classes in MPA school.

Your distrust of NCTQ is palatable, and all I can say is that I am doing my best to bring all sides to the table.

I was taught that there are at least two sides to every story. This is one side. (Working on a second side now.)

Regarding giving Marsh credit, I can say that the only reason I even received a draft last December is because the draft was circulating among some of those groups (I'll never tell where I got it!) for input. I received first draft dated in November about a week before Christmas. I made an editorial decision not to publish it, if for no other reason than I didn't want to ruin teachers' winter break.

I received a second draft shortly before I published it on December 29, 2015. Again, I'll never tell where I got it, but I received it from multiple groups that were not affiliated with each other. The first draft had never been published….so why was the second draft floating around? No one was in "damage control" mode yet.

And as I continued to follow the progress of the draft-writing, it was obvious that multiple groups (some of the same ones who had been privy to the first draft) were still being allowed to provide input.

Had Marsh not sought input from those groups from the beginning, none of those drafts would have been obtainable.

And you have to admit that the RAISE Act is very different from the PREP Act, and the PREP Act has been said to be much more palatable to the educator-based traditional Montgomery groups than the RAISE Act was. You may not be willing to give Marsh an ounce of credit for being willing to change the bill multiple times before it was filed, but I believe that it demonstrates he is willing to listen and make changes.

The Teacher Advisement Committee was added to the bill after his meeting with a former state teacher of the year.

The hard truth is that too many children are not getting the education they need to become productive citizens in Alabama. There are lots of reasons for this, and this should be a time when "all hands are on deck". I can't tell you who is right and who is wrong, but the conversation must continue in order to find better solutions for our children here in Alabama.

For whatever reasons, many solutions haven't worked. At the heart of it all may be money. Or it may be expectations. Or it may be desire. Or it may be preparation to teach. Or it may be standards. Or it may be curriculum. Or it may be assessments, formative and summative. Or it may computer access. Or it may be wi-fi access. Or it may be textbook price. Or it may be segregated schools. Or it may be self-contained classrooms. Or it may be governance of schools. Or it may be parental control (or lack thereof). Or it may be principals, or assistant principals, or the salaries we pay administrators (or don't pay). Or it may be social supports or mental health supports or physical health supports for children. Or it may be access to nutritional meals. Or it may be transportation issues. Or it may be counselors. Or it may be athletics (too much or too little). Or it may be a thousand other things that influence how schools work or don't work for children.

Standing still isn't improving. What I wish is that someone would show me a time of great improvement in American and/or Alabama public schools and pinpoint what it was that made the difference.

My guess is that it is, in fact, a thousand different things.

Teacher quality is extremely important. Research is clear on that. I currently see a whole bunch of people trying to do something to ensure great teachers are in front of kids in every classroom…from the ALSDE to the AEA to the A+ folks to the NCTQ folks to the BEA to the AFT to the StudentsFirst folks….everybody is trying to figure it out. It's highly likely that no one is 100% correct, but that each has a bit of the answer.

My hope is to keep readers informed along the way.

Thank you for reading, John. I appreciate all that you do to keep the education of Alabama's children at the forefront of this conversation.

Expert? Ms. Jacobs certainly finds her way into media efforts to cover (often woefully) education policy but does that make her an expert? Her roots in “Teach for Awhile” is also par for the course in the current climate. As an aside, my recollection is that the “Reading First” program in the Bush Education Department had a few “questions” about how money was doled out. I'm wondering if she was a political appointee. I'm not sure if working for Margaret Spellings or Rod Paige is anything to celebrate. And yes, that also goes for Arne Duncan or John King.

As to NCTQ, the casual reader should Google “What is NCTQ? (and why you should know)” from Diane Ravitch. Mercedes Schneider and others have also shredded much of the "scholarship" they relentlessly message out. Please also root around on the Fordham Institute since they founded NCTQ. As is almost always the case for education “reform” outfits, Bill Gates backs with his billions. Both group’s funding and reputations should be carefully considered.

Returning to Ms. Jacobs, she is actually “very, very” wrong – especially as to identifying (huh?) the tails (of a distribution curve.) I’m rather lost on what she means by “identifying” as pretty much every distribution will have at a tail and often two. Validity and reliability problems in this value-added voodoo aren't going to go away by a NCTQ propagandist's "very, very" easily tossed out assurances once a system has a personnel/pay decision that are contested or even just teachers varying year to year. Some of these value-added measures seem to have the same teacher as a stud one year and a dud the next. I'd like for Ms. Jacobs to actually cite some research backing up her "very, very" casually made claims. Are Del Marsh and his fellow travelers covering the litigation costs this mess will surely yield? And I still want to know which lobbyists have which clients lined up for the "longitudinal data" contract(s.)

There are plenty of other problems with the value-added mess but the bottom line in that there's no way to control for all the many variables involved in learning/teaching.

Another reality to point out if that the reason for that big jump from 2010 as to using student achievement (what we can try to measure) in teacher evaluations is that Brand Obama's "Race to the Top" program encouraged the same. The new ESEA rewrite, as flawed as it might be, is apparently going to allow several states to come to their senses. In some, however, the folks who've drank the Fordham … Kool-Aid are quite entrenched so they'll presumably try to brazen things out. If by some miracle an instrument and process actually works, which is highly unlikely, perhaps then Del Marsh, the BCA … can put that state's successes forward for consideration.

Lastly, Trisha writing "To Marsh’s credit, many groups were consulted along the way …" was quite notable to me. What many citizens, educators or otherwise, want to know is who all was with him at the start. That the earlier drafts got loose and that he then had to try to meet with various people/groups is hardly anything which he ought to be given credit for. That's damage control. And to give him any benefit of the doubt seems especially generous when everybody knows Del Marsh and his minions pulled 2013's "Accountability" Act switcheroo by literally double-crossing their own allies on the stalking horse "Flex Bill." Leopards. Spots.

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